Janelle Monáe’s latest revelation about time-travelling to see David Bowie might take her creativity to a whole new level, quite literally. In a recent conversation with Lucy Dacus for Rolling Stone’s “Musicians on Musicians,” Janelle casually mentioned that she once time-traveled to the 1970s to see the iconic David Bowie perform live as his famous alter ego, Ziggy Stardust.
That’s right, time travel. To see Bowie in the ’70s.
“I think when I saw David Bowie. I did,” Monáe shared earnestly. “I traveled back into the 1970s, and I saw him do Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. It was incredible.”
When Dacus, clearly surprised, pressed her for clarity, Janelle didn’t hesitate to elaborate. “Yeah, I was backstage,” she said. “And I was like, ‘This is what I want to do.’ And so I jetted back to the 2000s, and I was like, ‘I can have the musical, make the music, create the lyrics, and create community around transformation and being queer.'”
Responses from fans online have been enthusiastic, with some laughing and others playfully buying into her claims. One fan tweeted, “If anyone could time-travel in style, it’s definitely Janelle Monáe.” Another chimed in, “She probably just vibed so hard she crossed timelines.”
This isn’t the first time Monáe has hinted at bending the fabric of time and space. In a 2022 interview with Rock Cellar, she described herself as “timeless.” “I move through space. I move through time,” she remarked. “What is time, actually? It’s whatever we say it is.”
For those familiar with her work, her cosmic confidence makes perfect sense. Janelle’s 2010 album, The ArchAndroid, drew significant inspiration from Bowie’s audacious artistry, blending Afrofuturism with sci-fi themes and messages of liberation.
If she really did travel back to witness Bowie’s final Ziggy Stardust performance at London’s Hammersmith Odeon in 1973, we can’t even be upset about it. Bowie, who passed away in 2016, remains one of the most influential figures in the history of music. For Monáe, experiencing him, no matter the timeline, clearly had a profound impact on her development as both an artist and a visionary!
